Mister B was a “senior,” 9 years old, when we adopted him from Saguaro Dachshund Rescue. They waived their fee because of his age (we gave them a $200 donation anyway). He’s been with us for 4 years now and will turn 13 next week.
We took him to the animal hospital yesterday to find out if he’s finally licked valley fever, which he’s had for more than a year. We won’t get the lab results for a few days, but while he was there the vet detected a slight heart murmur. Most likely it’s age-related, and since neither we nor the vet see any symptoms of heart trouble, we agreed the best thing to do is to keep an eye on him. The main thing we wanted to know was whether we should continue taking Mr. B for walks. Absolutely, said the vet, and that’s what we wanted to hear. He loves his walks, and god knows we need the exercise. As for the valley fever, he hasn’t had symptoms since going on fluconazole, but it’s a persistent fungal infection and we won’t be terribly surprised if they tell us he still has it.
Speaking of walks and exercise, here’s the dachushund land train in action this morning: Fritzi & Lulu hooked up to their doberman-rated dual lead. Good thing they like to walk side-by-side, because this is how we’re doing our daily constitutional from now on. Mr. B was half a block ahead on his own leash, walking with Donna, and I couldn’t get everyone in the video … I don’t want anyone to think I’m slighting our senior dog! Or Donna!
Lulu has valley fever too. For the first couple of weeks after she and Fritzi moved in she had a constant cough and no appetite. We got her on fluconazole right away, like Mr. B. It took several days, but the cough is gone and her appetite is back … she’s a new dog, just like Mr. B was once his meds kicked in.
I think I mentioned how hard it is to get pills down Lulu’s throat. We tried hiding them in cream cheese and peanut butter, but she’d find them and spit them out. We tried crushing them and mixing them with her food, but she’d refuse to eat. Then we tried embedding the pills in braunschweiger … down the hatcheroonie! We may have found The Way™!
Braunschweiger. I knew that stuff had to be good for something.